[NEohioPAL] The Magic of The Muppets - This Saturday Afternoon

[Bruce Hennes]

*How a South Euclid kid grew up to become one of the world’s foremost
Muppet experts*



By Joey Morona, cleveland.com



“The Magic of the Muppets” with Joe Hennes will take place at 4 p.m.,
Saturday, May 30, at the Irishtown Bend Taproom, 1849 W. 24th Street,
Cleveland. Tickets are $20 and available at clickgobuynow.com/jwp.  The
multi-media show is approximately 2 hours long.  It is aimed at adults, but
it is safe for kids.



CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Muppets appear to be on the brink of another
resurgence. A special episode of “The Muppet Show” featuring Sabrina
Carpenter drew nearly 8 million viewers in its first few days on ABC and
Disney+ in February, Jim Henson’s Creature Shop in New York City recently
opened for tours, and the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster starring the Muppets is
now thrilling tourists at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida.



It’s enough to make you say, “Wocka, wocka!” Just ask Joe Hennes.



The South Euclid native has spent the better part of two decades immersed
in all things Muppets as editor-in-chief of ToughPigs.com, the
authoritative website for adult fans of the franchise.



“Somebody’s got to do it, right?” Hennes said. “Why not a kid from
Cleveland?”



On Saturday, Hennes will present “The Magic of the Muppets,” a TED
Talk-style event exploring the life, career and legacy of Henson, at the
Irishtown Bend Taproom in Ohio City.



“It’s going to be a microcosm of some of the best, most interesting and
most important Muppet content from over the years,” said Hennes. “But
there’s also a throughline about creativity and inspiration that I’m really
excited to share with everybody because that’s really what Jim’s greatest
strength was.”



But how exactly did Hennes, also an editor for Random House Children’s
Books, become one of the foremost Muppets experts in the world? Like many
from his generation, he grew up on “Sesame Street.” But as kids his age
moved on to other things, Hennes never stopped watching. He followed
Henson’s creations to “The Muppet Show” and the big screen, then fell into
a rabbit hole that included the puppeteer’s early work in advertising and
fantasy films like “The Dark Crystal” and “Labyrinth.”



Hennes eventually moved to New York City to pursue a career in children’s
media.



“I found a whole community of people who felt just like I did,” he said.



That included Danny Horn, the founder of ToughPigs (www.toughpigs.com) .
When Horn left in 2005, Hennes and his friend Ryan Roe took over. Since
then, the site has published thousands of articles and produced hundreds of
podcast episodes. Hennes has moderated panels at comic-cons and interviewed
Frank Oz (the voice of Miss Piggy), Caroll Spinney (the man behind Big
Bird) and Kermit the Frog himself. When Fathom Events brought “The Muppet
Movie” back to theaters for its 45th anniversary in 2024, Hennes recorded
the introduction.



His work on ToughPigs, which Hennes characterizes as a labor of love rather
than a money-making venture, has given him a front-row seat to why the
Muppets inspire such devotion, even as the fandom has been tested over the
years. Unlike “Star Wars,” Marvel or Pixar, the Muppets have never been a
billion-dollar franchise for Disney, and fans have sometimes felt the brand
has been pushed aside in favor of bigger properties.



But Hennes says the Muppets have always had something those franchises
can’t manufacture: the ability to work on multiple levels at once — silly
enough for small children, strange enough for older kids and nostalgic
enough for the adults who grew up with them.



“We know that Muppets can be a really successful franchise,” he said. “It
seems like they are on this upward trajectory that I’m really excited to be
riding on.”



It wasn’t always like that. Hennes got a firsthand look at the challenges
facing the IP during nearly a decade working at Sesame Workshop in the
2010s. His feelings about his time there are “complicated,” he said. While
it was cool to see “how the sausage gets made,” he ultimately left
frustrated.



“The trouble I came into with Sesame Workshop was wanting to be a part of
the creative process and help both push it in a new direction and remind
the company where its roots were,” he said. “A lot of the people at Sesame
Workshop who are currently running the show could stand to use a little
reminder.”



Still, he looks back fondly at his favorite project there. Hennes wrote a
parody of the movie “Birdman” starring Big Bird and Spinney, who appeared
in the sketch as himself. (You can see this short parody by clicking here
<https://youtu.be/lnfAxUjRQAo?si=DdrZ9tIz9_VPvj-L>.



“It’s like getting to work with one of the Beatles,” Hennes recalled. “It
doesn’t get any better than that.”



His interactions with Spinney, members of the Henson family and current and
former staff at the Jim Henson Company have unlocked unique insight into
and appreciation for the man behind the Muppets. He learned that Henson’s
superpower, beyond his creative genius, might have been his ability to
create a positive working environment where employees felt valued and heard.



“He really encouraged Frank Oz, the closest thing he had to a creative
partner, to follow his dream of being a film director, which meant working
on non-Henson properties,” Hennes said. “To do that, he would say to him,
‘I’ll work with you on a movie or I’ll help you make connections.’”



For Henson, it was about figuring out how to create and keep the
inspiration moving forward without getting too complacent. That message is
the heart of Hennes’ “The Magic of the Muppets” talk.



“It’s a tricky balance,” he said. “Jim was able to ride that line in a
beautiful way that I think that we can all find a little inspiration in as
we look toward whatever our next creative endeavors might be.”
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